AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by David Beckham and David Blunkett and the fourth instalment of Harry Potter are likely to lie half-read and abandoned on the bookshelves of British households.

The average Briton spends more than #4,000 on books during their lifetime but nearly half remain unread, propping up wonky tables or left to languish on bedside cabinets.

Surprisingly, Booker-prize winning murder mystery Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre, topped a new list of works of fiction which readers could not complete.

More than a third (35%) of those who bought or borrowed the best-selling book admitted that they did not finish it.

Just under a third, (32%), of adult readers admitted they did not get to the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Complicated novels like James Joyce's Ulysses and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses also came high in the list of books abandoned halfway through.

The results might have something to do with the fact that out of the 4,000 people surveyed 55% said that they often bought books for decoration, and had no intention of actually reading them.

Jason Davies, duty manager for Waterstones, Cardiff, said he was shocked by the findings and said they didn't match the trend that he has seen in Wales with his regular customers.

He said, "To be honest I have never heard that from our customers. We generally get them coming in and saying they have just read a book that they absolutely loved and can we recommend something that is along the same sort of lines."

While Mr Davies personally wouldn't pick up a Tolstoy novel as he knows he is not going to read it, he said the store's customers are just as discerning in their choices.

He said, "Even with our three for two offers you might think people will just pick random books up but they seem to pick books that they will definitely read.

"So I find these figures quite shocking, it isn't what I would have thought."

Despite the store's happy regular customers it seems like potential readers across the country are finding it too difficult to complete a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction works.

The survey from Teletext blames the added pressures of working life and the dominance of the digital age for the slightly haphazard way that some people read.

Seemingly attention spans have shrunk in the digital age, with 42% admitting they are unable to concentrate on long-winded titles.

Many also revealed they found it difficult to dedicate time to reading for pleasure, with only 24% finding time to read every day, as nearly half said they were too tired.

With little time to curl up with a book and get seriously entranced by it, it is possibly not surprising that some of the more difficult novels or in-depth biographies are not being finished.

Ulysses is third on the list for uncompleted novels with 28% unable to get to the end of James Joyce's notoriously difficult modernist masterpiece.

The fiction list also includes Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas which consists of six interlinked stories and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The non-fiction list is topped by former Home Secretary David Blunkett's lengthy autobiography The Blunkett Tapes, which proved too much for 35% of readers.

Bill Clinton takes second place, losing 30% of readers before they finish the 1,024 pages of My Life.

David Beckham: My Side, which won a British Book Award for the fastest-selling autobiography of all time, is third (27%).

And, in a depressing thought for all celebrities and their ghost writers slaving away on the pre-fame section of their books, at least a fifth of all readers skip the childhood details and dive straight into the heart of biographies.